


i fall in love whenever we meet

by thecarlysutra



Category: Top Gun (1986)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Alternate Universe - Time Travel, Boys In Love, Destiny, Home, Love Confessions, M/M, Soulmates, Time Travel, True Love, Yuletide Treat
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-11
Updated: 2019-12-11
Packaged: 2021-02-26 07:35:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,206
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21759934
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thecarlysutra/pseuds/thecarlysutra
Summary: A love story, all out of order.  ATime Traveler's WifeAU ofTop Gun.Title from Whitney Houston's "How Will I Know?" I am deeply indebted to escritoireazul for her beta reader services and the clever summary.
Relationships: Tom "Iceman" Kazansky/Pete "Maverick" Mitchell
Comments: 13
Kudos: 49
Collections: Yuletide 2019





	i fall in love whenever we meet

**Author's Note:**

  * For [boasamishipper](https://archiveofourown.org/users/boasamishipper/gifts).



> I wrote this in a world without homophobia because (a) it's gross, and (b) I figure that if people had scientifically verifiable soulmates of whatever gender, people would be less uptight about The Gays.

  
Maverick is three years old the first time he jumps. It is a rainy afternoon, and he is sitting with his parents on the living room rug, playing with his blocks. All of a sudden, he feels a tug behind his navel, like something is pulling him, and then everything blurs, the strands of time and space rushing by him. When everything settles, he is sitting in the grass and clover, the sun bright on his face. 

“Well, hey there,” someone says, and somehow the voice is familiar, but when he looks up, he sees a man he’s never seen before. The man walks off his porch and into the grass, and crouches beside him. “I’ve missed you. I just looked up, and you were gone. I think you did it to get out of mowing the lawn.” 

Maverick frowns. The man smiles, and sits next to him in the grass. 

“Have you ever made a daisy chain before?” he asks. 

Maverick shakes his head. The man smiles, and plucks a clover from the ground. “It’s easy. I’ll show you.”

An hour later, the tug behind Maverick’s navel lands him back in his living room with a crown of clovers on his head. His parents are beside themselves, but he is laughing. 

***

In 1963, time travel isn’t fully understood, but it’s already been a topic of study for more than a hundred years. It’s a rare condition, affecting around 0.002 percent of the population worldwide. Scientists know that there’s a hereditary component, and they know you only jump in your own timeline. They know there can never be two of you in the same time; one of you jumps in, and the other jumps out, but usually you don’t simply trade places. It’s a complicated, unpredictable system, but it does have rules. 

Maverick’s parents take him to the doctor, and he is pronounced in perfect health except for this one, small quirk. There’s nothing for it, either; there are no treatments to stop him from jumping, and there is no way to predict it more than a minute out. Maverick gets a special ID bracelet and a note explaining his condition for when he’s ready to go to school, and the doctor consoles his mother, who is crying, by telling her that the literature suggests Maverick will almost always jump to his soulmate if he has one, and the clover crown suggests that he does. 

“A soulmate, honey! That’s great, isn’t it?” Maverick’s father says. “Someone to look after him when we can’t?” 

Maverick’s mother doesn’t speak to him until dinner that night, though. The doctor got him to admit he had a grandfather who jumped, and it’s the first she’s heard of it. 

***

Ice is eight the first time he meets Maverick. He’s just fallen running home from school, skinning his knees terribly, and he’s trying not to cry when all of a sudden there’s a man he’s never seen before standing next to him, offering him a hand up. 

“Hey,” the man says. “You okay?” 

Ice wipes his eyes on his sleeve. “The older boys were chasing me. They called me a name.” 

He doesn’t want to say it, but the man doesn’t ask him to. “Can I walk you home? I’ll keep you safe. Promise.” 

He offers his hand, and Ice takes it. He lets the man walk him home. His father is at work, but the man speaks briefly with his mother out of Ice’s earshot, and whatever he says convinces her to let him come inside and gently clean and bandage Ice’s knees. 

“I gotta go,” the man says abruptly. “You okay now?” 

“Yeah. Will I see you again?” 

The man grins. “Count on it,” he says, and disappears before Ice’s eyes. 

***

Soulmates have been studied for longer than time travel. The oldest known reference comes from the Shang Dynasty, and they can be found in Sanskrit and in hieroglyphics and in the writings of scholars from Plato to da Vinci. It’s much more prevalent than time travel; studies suggest anywhere from ten to fifteen percent of the population has a soulmate, though some scholars suggest the real number is much higher, due to the rigorous nature of scientific verification and the pure, blind luck of meeting your soulmate within your lifetime. 

For reasons not understood, the prevalence of soulmates in time travelers is more than three times the mean of the population as a whole. 

***

They meet on the same timeline in 1986. Maverick wanted to be a pilot like his father, but with his condition, it isn’t allowed. (He’s also not allowed to drive.) He joins the Navy anyway, and becomes a plane mechanic, helping the boys up there from the ground. June of ’86, he takes a transfer to Miramar, California. His first day there, he’s in the hangar working on some landing gear when he feels someone’s eyes on him. He turns around, and sees a young pilot in flight gear leaning against the hangar door. 

“Heard you do a pretty good lube job,” Ice says. 

Maverick laughs so hard he drops his tools. He all but runs to him, taking him in his arms and kissing him breathless. 

“Jesus Christ,” Maverick says when they break for air. “You’ve had all this time to think up a line for when we meet for real, and that’s what you go with?” 

Ice grins, and kisses him again. “I just wanted to see you smile.” 

***

Ice takes him home. They make love for hours, and then lay together, sated and spent, tangled together. Maverick is making his way down every inch of Ice’s body, starting at the crown of his head and working down, feeling him beneath his fingers like learning him in Braille and kissing him softly, sweetly. He’s just made it past Ice’s ribs and down to the flat plane of his stomach, and he presses a kiss above his navel and feels the rhythm of Ice’s breathing beneath his hands. Then something strikes him, like a divine vision. 

“I wanna marry you,” he says.

“Yes,” Ice says.

“I mean it,” Maverick says. “I mean, I know it seems fast; I haven’t even known you for twenty-four hours, but that’s not true. I’ve known you almost my whole life, and I’m deeply, desperately in love with you, and—wait, did you say ‘yes’?”

“I did. I love you crazy, Maverick.”

Maverick crawls up Ice’s body, grinning. “You really want to marry me?”

“Yes,” Ice says again.

“Can we—can we do it now?”

“I think we’ll have to get dressed, but yes. If you can find someone to marry us at one o’clock in the morning, I will marry you right now.”

Maverick trips off the bed. “Give me five minutes.”

Ice relaxes back into the pillows and laughs.

Half an hour later, they are standing before the altar in an all-night wedding chapel in Encinitas. The officiant has a slick pompadour and a girlie tattoo on his forearm. He is wearing a Hawaiian shirt and boat shoes.

“Do you?” he asks Ice.

“I do.”

“Do you?” he asks Maverick.

“I do.”

And just like that, they’re married.

Maverick paid two hundred dollars to the chapel, and that included the ceremony and a night’s stay in a honeymoon cabin. It has a heart-shaped hot tub and the bed is covered with rose petals. Ice sits on the bed, twisting his pawn shop wedding ring around his finger. 

“Husband,” he says, and grins. “I believe we have to consummate this marriage. You know, to make everything nice and legal.”

“Well,” Maverick says slowly. “I’d hate to go against the law.”

“Yeah. You’re a stickler for the rules,” Ice says, and laughs.

Maverick begins unbuttoning his shirt. He goes slow, watching the color come to Ice’s cheeks, the way he bites his lip harder as every inch of skin is exposed. Maverick’s got his shirt off, and there’s confetti in his hair from after the _I do_ s, and he’s never been happier in his life. He starts to crawl on the bed, starts to go to Ice, when he feels a familiar tug behind his navel.

“Shit,” he says, and he’s pulled away before he can say anything else. 

When everything stops spinning, the place where Maverick is now is bright, and it’s _cold_. Maverick’s teeth chatter, and before he can register any specifics about where he is, he feels something warm being wrapped around him. He blinks the sun out of his eyes, and turns his head to see Ice. He’s older, maybe twenty years older, maybe twenty-five; he’s got some silver hair at his temples and laugh lines by his eyes. They are standing on a city street with snow blowing around them, and he is wrapping his coat around Maverick’s shoulders. 

“You look like you were somewhere fun,” Ice says, the corner of his mouth quirking. 

“I—fuck, Ice. I just skipped out on our wedding night.” 

“Ah. I should warn you: I’m not going to be very happy when you get back.” 

Maverick flinches. “How mad are we talking?” 

Ice frowns. “Not mad, Mav. Not at all.” 

Maverick wants to press, but he doesn’t want to be in shit with two Ices, so he doesn’t. 

“Lemme buy you something to warm you up,” Ice says. 

Maverick buttons up Ice’s coat, and follows Ice into a coffee shop, where Ice buys him a hot chocolate. They sit at a table in the back, and Maverick takes little sips and lets the cup warm his hands. 

“What year is it?” 

“Twenty-ten.” 

“Where did I leave you today, in 2010?”

“We were shopping, and you took all the bags with you. I hope you bring them back.” 

Maverick is thinking of a reply when he feels a tug behind his navel. “I gotta go. Thanks for the hot chocolate.” 

He shrugs out of Ice’s coat. Ice stands with him, pulls him close with one arm, pressing a kiss to his temple. “Love you, baby. Be gentle, okay?” 

Maverick is about to ask what he means when everything blurs. When things stop spinning, Maverick is back in the honeymoon cabin in Encinitas, standing in the same spot beside the bed. 

Ice is curled up against the headboard, his head in his hands. His shoulders are shaking, and that’s what lets Maverick know he’s crying. 

“Ice,” he says quietly, and crawls onto the bed to get to him. “Ice, I’m so sorry—” 

Ice looks up. His face is wet and his lips are trembling, and he’s looking at Maverick with such utter need that it makes his chest hurt. 

“Don’t be sorry,” he says. “I know you wouldn’t leave me if you could help it. I mean … you always find me. No matter when you are.” 

Maverick wraps his arms around him, and Ice goes a little limp beneath him, letting his forehead fall against Maverick’s. 

There’s a question he has to ask. He feels sick getting it out, but he has to say it. 

“Do you regret it?” Maverick asks. “Marrying me?” 

Ice sniffs, looks up. Looks him dead in the eye. “Never. I’ve wanted to marry you most of my life. Besides flying, it’s the only thing I ever wanted for myself. To be yours.” 

“You are. And I’m yours.” 

“I know. I just … I don’t always get to keep you, Mav. That’s what hurts.” 

“Did I come here? After I jumped? From somewhere else?” 

“No. I was alone. Sometimes you just leave me alone.” 

Maverick pulls him close. “I’m sorry, Ice. I love you, and I’m sorry.” 

***

Maverick trades in his medical ID bracelet for a tattoo on the inside of his right wrist. It reads:

> MAVERICK MITCHELL  
>  BLOOD TYPE: B POS  
>  TIME TRAVELER, CLASS A  
>  PLEASE RETURN TO ICEMAN KAZANSKY

They’re in the kitchen one night, washing the dishes from dinner, when Maverick jumps. He finds himself in the same yard as the first time he time traveled, thirty years ago. The late afternoon sun is warm on his skin, and he kneels down and plucks a clover from the yard, twirls the stem in his fingers.

“Hey there,” a familiar voice says. Maverick smiles, and looks up at the porch he’s seen a hundred times to see an old man carefully descend the stairs.

“Hey,” Maverick says. He waits for Ice to come to him, one slow step at a time.

“I’ve missed you,” Ice says, cupping Maverick’s face in his hand, his fingers resting against the pulse point in Maverick’s neck and his thumb brushing over his cheek. “You just popped out while we were playing Scrabble. I think it’s because I was winning.”

“Yeah, right,” Maverick says, and they both laugh.

Maverick pulls Ice into his arms. He’s as familiar as the feeling of breath filling up his lungs, as constant as his own pulse.

“I love you,” Maverick says. “I love you forever.”

“I love you, too,” Ice says. “You’re forever for me, you know.”

Maverick closes his eyes. He doesn’t know when he’ll jump again, but he knows where he’ll go. He’ll go home. Maybe Maverick is Ice’s forever, but Ice is Maverick’s home. No matter when they meet.  



End file.
